When human bodies or animals are hurt in sport injuries or in accidents, bones are often fractured due to being hit by strong external force. Treatment of bone fracture is often carried out through surgical operations or application of cast/splint. However, when a nonsurgical treatment is used, cast/splint has to be applied to immobilize adjacent joints. Since it usually takes about two months for fractured bones to heal, the cast/splint immobilization often causes muscle weakness or joint stiffness, which requires rehabilitation to restore normal activity of the patient. On the other hand, for surgical operations, skin incision must be made at the fracture site. Usually, a large wound about 10-12 cm has to be made. Wound complications such as pain or infection may occur after the surgical operation, and cause increased morbidity of the patient.
FIGS. 1A and 1B show a conventional way of holding a broken bone. The conventional way of surgical operation, when applied, for example, to treat patella fracture, is first making an incision 100 through which a Kirschner pin 110 is inserted and then twisting a steel wire 120 in a figure of eight. However, the conventional tension band wiring technique has the drawbacks of (1) making a large wound by the incision, which require a long period of time to heal and (2) the large wound often causing extensive soft tissue dissection and periosteal stripping and damaging vascular supply of fracture site, which in turn affects the healing of fractured bone. Further, the large wound is susceptible to easy infection and unnecessary pain, and extension of healing time.
FIGS. 1C and 1D show another conventional way for holding a broken bone, which is applied to treating fracture of distal fibula (lateral malleolar) or olecranon. An incision 100 is first made on the fracture site. A driller 130 is used to do drilling on the bone in order to make a fixation hole 140 in the bone. A steel wire 120 is put through the fixation hole 140. Kirschner pins 110 are inserted into the patient's body at the fracture site through the incision 100 and are fixed by being twisted around by the steel wire 120. This way of holding a broken bone shares the same drawbacks as the previously discussed manner for treating patella fracture.
Thus, the present invention aims to provide a minimally invasive skeletal fixation device, which requires only size reduced incisions and realize improvement of performance of surgical operation to thereby facilitate recovery of the patient and reduction of pain.